


to study the steps

by smithens



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Dance Halls, F/M, Formalwear, Heterosexuality, M/M, Romantic Friendship, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <br/>
    <em>The three of them had hardly been at the ball for an hour, yet already seven of the many young ladies in attendance had been bold enough to ask Combeferre whether or not “his fair friend would join in the dancing”. Each of them, even the most intrepid, had been obliged to report back to their nearby bunch of friends with disappointing news.</em>
    <br/>
  </p>
</blockquote>Courfeyrac and Combeferre, accompanied by an aloof Enjolras, attend a dress ball.
            </blockquote>





	1. to dance the quadrille

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have so many other fics to finish/work on, i know, but this has been sitting in my google docs for ages and i felt like posting the first chapter would make it easier for me to work on it.
> 
> chapter 1 is from courfeyrac's point of view; the 'heterosexuality' free form tag is there for his sake. ;)

“What of Monsieur Enjolras?”

Courfeyrac only just managed to suppress his laughter. Across from him, Combeferre was smiling.

Though she was becoming in appearance, with her auburn hair, rosy cheeks, and sparkling green eyes, Mademoiselle Eléonore’s youthful deportment was not endearing so much as it was wearisome: she asked many questions, took few answers, and gave off the air of a girl who thought herself more sophisticated than she really was. To introduce her to Enjolras would cause a disaster, Courfeyrac was certain, particularly if he was going to continue being unsociable at the wall for the duration of the evening.  Of course, to any other man who knew him, the behaviour was easily understood - but they were not with other men who knew him, they were at a ball, and there were many young women who seemed intent on being his first dancing partner.

Eléonore was not by any means the first girl to have enquired. She likely would not be the last.

“What of him, Mademoiselle?”

“Why! Won’t he dance?”

“Not at this time, I should think, Mademoiselle, but perhaps later? He needs time to - to study the steps.”

Combeferre gave a short cough in the way that Courfeyrac knew meant that he was hiding a laugh. The still-silent girl at his arm - what was her name, Isabelle? - raised her eyebrows. She was quite pretty, in a manner more delicate than striking: her hair was blonde in shade only just darker than Enjolras’s, her skin fair but her cheeks rosy. The front locks of her hair were curled neatly to frame her face, while those in the back were looped above her head in the most current fashion. Though she had been quiet since Combeferre had introduced them both, her eyes - blue with flecks of grey, and long lashes - gave the impression that she was more aware than she would like to let on.

Her gown was flatteringly tailored and rose pink, with sparkling beads at the bodice. She was surely wealthy.

Well, Combeferre clearly preferred a certain physique in his women, judging by his most recent dancing partners, but Courfeyrac could not begrudge him that. All men did, did they not?

….Except, perhaps, Enjolras.

Eléonore, and now Isabelle - yes, he was certain that was her name - were still looking at him with clear expectations.

To be fair, he had not told a flagrant lie, Courfeyrac thought to himself: Enjolras _would_ need time to study the steps, if he intended to dance at all. The predicament was that he had no such intentions.

Really, they could not take him anywhere. He was too handsome to stay inconspicuous, yet too cold for the comfort of the fair sex. While this was often to his advantage in political circles, it was not at all helpful at social functions such as these. Even from his current seat near the corner, Enjolras drew gazes from all over the room; when the three of them had walked in earlier in the evening, heads had turned. And, so much as Courfeyrac would have liked to think that the stares and tittering were due to his dashing new waistcoat, he knew that more likely they were a natural result of Enjolras and his comely face.

The three of them had hardly been at the ball for an hour, yet already seven of the many young ladies in attendance had been bold enough to ask Combeferre whether or not “his fair friend would join in the dancing”. Each of them, even the most intrepid, had been obliged to report back to their nearby bunch of friends with disappointing news.

(Courfeyrac himself thought there was a sizeable number of men in attendance, many of whom were likely far more accomplished revelers than Enjolras was - and even if not, definitely more willing to take the hand of a pretty girl. He hadn’t yet spoken that thought.)

Eléonore, it seemed, was a bit more stubborn than the others. “To study the steps,” she repeated, with a jut of her chin. “Why, if one does not know the -”

“- he is from le Midi, after all; surely you know that these things are done differently down there?”

“Le Midi!” Isabelle exclaimed immediately, nearly into Combeferre’s ear. He flinched; she, meanwhile, was grinning without bothering to cover her mouth. Courfeyrac found it fetching. “I have not been further south than Orléans, and there it was only the convent - where does Monsieur Enjolras come from?”

Unabashed _and_ convent-educated was not a combination Courfeyrac found often, but he was finding it currently quite compelling. Perhaps if he told her where he himself was from, she’d be eager to make herself apart of his collection. As it was, she was looking at him solely now, having pulled her arm out from Combeferre’s to clasp her hands together.

Not five minutes of conversation and he already had her undivided attention.

Somehow uncaring that she was now closer to Courfeyrac than to him, Combeferre had just opened his mouth, likely to inform her of their friend’s life story and family tree. Unfortunately,  Eléonore interrupted before he had the chance to do so:

“More importantly, if he cannot do the steps like a Parisian as he ought to, how does he do them at all?”

“The Italian way,” Combeferre said, just as Courfeyrac said, “the Spanish way.”

The audible result sounded something like a strange combination of both.

“The Spanish way,” Courfeyrac repeated, giving Isabelle his most charming smile. Her rosy cheeks seemed to redden further, but her smile had not disappeared quite yet. He would try his luck with her later, if Combeferre proved himself to be unattached.

“The dances of Spain are quite - ah, indecorous, for many Parisians.”

Combeferre’s words came across as absentminded. His stare was focused in Enjolras’s direction, Courfeyrac noticed, but it seemed as though he were looking directly at the women prattling with one another several paces away from him rather than the man himself.

“Oh, nonsense!” Eléonore exclaimed. “When I attended the ball of Madame d’Aubin, the Spanish dances were in high favour! Monsieur Enjolras needn’t worry. I expect we shall hear some Spanish dances called in short time, at which point I should like him to join us.”

Her confidence was beginning to vex Courfeyrac, but he nearly pitied her: there was little chance Enjolras wouldn’t find her insufferable.

But, before either he or Combeferre could attempt once more to dissuade her, the couples in the center of the hall were called off. After bowing and curtsying at one another with far more poise than they had danced, the men and women dispersed.

Courfeyrac wasted no time in taking Eléonore’s gloved hand once more.

“Well, after we dance the quadrille, Mademoiselles, perhaps we may ask Monsieur Enjolras to detail his experience with the Spanish steps further. Now! Shall we?”

It was giving a false hope: not only to Isabelle and Eléonore, but to every young woman they would inform of their good fortune the moment the quadrille ended. He could sense Combeferre’s disapproving gaze at his back even as they parted to join the dancing. The look was unnecessary, Courfeyrac thought. Really, it was only a matter of time before Enjolras would have to learn to be cordial with women; surely, they were both aware of that. There would only be so many more times Courfeyrac could explain away his friend’s solitary behaviour in polite company.

He could let Combeferre disapprove. They would discuss it later, surely. For now, however, Courfeyrac preferred to concern himself with enjoying the dances.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjolras is being extremely rude, just so everyone knows - sitting out for the duration of the event while dances are taking place is not a good idea in polite company like in this setting. more so in situations where the ladies outnumber the men, as is the case here.
> 
> shoutout to my favorite references for this fic thus far: kickery.com, wikipedia in french and english, and jane austen bloggers. (where the info is slightly anachronistic, but not so much so that i can't use it.)
> 
> thanks for reading! not sure when i'll put up more chapters, but hopefully sooner than my track record. :)


	2. to enjoy a love story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several Months Later ;)
> 
> thank you for all who are sticking with me!

“If they call us again, Monsieur Combeferre, I suppose that I must prepare you: I do not practise dancing often,” Isabelle said, picking at the wristband of her glove, and looking, it seemed, anywhere other than at Combeferre beside her. They did not touch: he sat a hand’s width apart from the edge of her rose-colored skirt, and she had her fidgeting hands to the other side of her lap. “Though my mother is most insistent I improve my skill, now that I am to remain in Paris.”

They had been called off shortly after the quadrille had begun for lack of grace. Mademoiselle had giggled and pulled him away from the center; for a few minutes they had simply watched the dancers more talented than they. (Courfeyrac and Eléonore, Combeferre noted, seemed to be a far better match during a quadrille than during a conversation.) Conversation had rose up naturally.

Truthfully, Combeferre did not mind it, but he would have preferred to kiss Isabelle’s hand and let her off gently rather than to continue to speak with her. The fault was not her own, as she was quite sweet, but as he had collected himself and gone to sit minutes before, he had noticed that Enjolras, standing away in a corner, had grown tired of fending advances. Combeferre felt it his duty as a companion to keep him from loneliness.

As it was, Enjolras was now nowhere to be seen in the great room.

“I take it you were not taught the art in Orléans.”

Such austere charm, it seemed, did not fit well to places of frivolity.

Combeferre dared to reach at Isabelle’s wrist and poke her with the back of his gloved hand; she finally looked up to him and smiled.

“Surely you know that Sisters are not fond of merriment,” she said, with a soft laugh. “Oh - I assure you I am well read, and I enjoy needlepoint, but one does not find a suitor at a - a bookshop, or by a sampler in her hand.”

Her eyes were not very blue after all, Combeferre thought, more grey. They were not dull, but neither were they colorful - her gaze, however, was intent.

In the moment he adjusted his spectacles, she colored and looked back to her lap.

Overall she was a curious girl: lively in the way she spoke, then suddenly quiet; or,  knowing of gaze, then suddenly distracted. She danced awfully. In a way her attitude intrigued him, for it did not seem affected, but he did not wish to come to know her tonight only to never see her again.

With the chatter of loiterers and the music from the quintet, their silence was not entirely uncomfortable. Still, he did not wish to be rude.

“A bookshop would have you closely chaperoned, Mademoiselle,” he said, trying to be kind. She did not deserve any ire; it was his own fault that he preferred not to know her too well. “What do you like to read?”

“Many things.”

“Yes?”

Her skirt rustled as she shifted her position, uncrossing and then crossing again her legs. She looked to the center of the room, in the direction of Mademoiselle Eléonore and Courfeyrac, who were now partnered for another song.

And then she looked back to him, not smiling, but very serious. Combeferre knew the look on account of having sisters; he knew also that it meant this was not something she ordinarily gained respect for.  

Isabelle tucked a blonde curl at the front of her head behind her ear, turned away once again, and said, “I prefer novels, in fact.”

_ That  _ was interesting. He nodded at her in the hopes she would realise he thought so, uncertain of how other to express it - but she still did not look at him.

“The Sisters allowed you those, did they?”

“I know you jest, Monsieur Combeferre. No, they did not, we did not read novels at the convent - but Maman does allow me to at home. Though, she does not like that I have chosen Shelley lately.”

“What, Percy? - you read in English?”

The interruption escaped him before he could prevent it.

Then, finally, Isabelle stopped picking at her glove and gave him her full attention, although her brow was now furrowed in some kind of exasperation: “ _ Mary _ Shelley. I read in French, but I should quite like to study English. I thought  _ Valperga  _ was lovely, if one neglects to consider Madame Shelley’s politics, but her most recent was -”

This time he would not have tried to stop himself: “What do you think of her politics, Mademoiselle?”

It was one thing to talk of novels with a young woman, but to talk of politics was quite another. Probably, he would regret it if he did not ask; besides, Isabelle seemed eager to talk now in general.

“I should think,” she said, rising to stand as the present dancers were bid off, “that I may better enjoy a love story if it does not attempt to make a radical of me, and that for once I quite understand my mother’s grudge against the author.”

“Do you.”

Or perhaps, rather, he would regret discussing literature at all - many times he had been told never to bring it up in conversations with young women, particularly if he wished to court them.

(If he were to court, he would like to do so with a woman whose opinions he shared, whom he could be honest with regarding literature, or politics, or current events. As it was, courting was never his intention; neither, of course, was it Enjolras’s, or Courfeyrac’s, however, and they had been known to avoid intricate discussion during these functions. Combeferre himself was never able to resist.)

“I do have political opinions, yes.”

Nonplussed, Combeferre clasped his hands in his lap; Isabelle, having spoken sharply, turned back and forth on her feet, her pink skirt twirling.

“Mademoiselle, it is not my intention to suggest -”

“- ah. Of course. May I ask your pardon, Monsieur Combeferre, I am not accustomed to conversing about these things.”

He realised, then, watching her shift nervously back and forth, that he pitied Isabelle more than anything else: that she clearly wished to discuss ‘these things’ was obvious, that she was most often unable to due to her sex and status was surely fact. And now he had bothered her with his own tactless questioning.

“Put simply,” she said, more toward the room than to him, “I prefer not to read stories which express such  _ republican  _ sentiment, pardon. They are quite … oh, benighted, I should think. Don’t you?”

All at once, the music finished with a grand coda, and in the middle of the room, Courfeyrac and Mademoiselle Eléonore bowed and curtsied to one another, respectively, before immediately parting entirely.

Feigning idle thought, Combeferre nodded to satisfy Isabelle, who was applauding, and then willed for Courfeyrac to come to his rescue - ideally before he himself lost the ability to keep his mouth shut.

It was Eléonore who did, instead: with a broad smile, she flounced over to take Isabelle’s arm, saying quite loudly, “there is a Baron here! Did you  know ? oh, let’s go to _see!_ ”

Still clenching his teeth, Combeferre stood to at the very least say his polite regards to Isabelle, who might have been sweet in a different sort of conversation, but upon doing so he received a nasty look from Eléonore. She turned away before he could react, and pulled Isabelle along with her without even mentioning her former supposed partner.

Well, thought Combeferre, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Courfeyrac leave the hall. A mere second after he disappeared, a young woman in a striking emerald dress who had earlier desired to speak to Enjolras left alone, also, and Combeferre began to cultivate an understanding of precisely why Mademoiselle Eléonore was so affronted.

And Enjolras, still, was nowhere to be seen. The reason for that was no mystery; his location, however, was.

After a brief, hesitant moment of deliberation, Combeferre came to the conclusion it would be best to leave the room, as well, at the very least for fresh air - and of course to begin the search for wherever Enjolras had gone off to in a private home - and so, resignedly, he did.


End file.
